Saturday, December 24, 2011

It's A Christmas Eve Update!

I know I haven't been around much in the last week. Things have been a little busy with rehearsals and getting things ready for Christmas. My birthday was on Sunday, and I've been enjoying my gifts! I got a new winter coat from my parents, and bought a new camera lens plus all 7 Harry Potter books with the money from my in-laws (well, part of that was Christmas money too, so I treated myself early!). So between taking pictures with my new lens, taking care of Judith and the dogs, and burying my nose in books, I lost track of time and forgot to post!

I have to say that I've been enjoying the Harry Potter books immensely! Believe it or not, I never read them before now (I was kind of bucking the trend for quite a while), and in retrospect that was one of the dumbest things I've done. Thanks to many of my awesome mommy friends constantly talking about the books and movies, I finally caved and began reading them. I'm hooked! I'm getting ready to start the 4th book, and can't wait to get the movies with the rest of my birthday money! I'm still kicking myself a bit for not reading these sooner (I had a major "WTF self?!" moment after reading the first chapter in book 1), but I'm glad that I'm remedying the error of my ways now! Hopefully once Judith gets older, she'll decide to read the books herself, and will enjoy them as much as I am enjoying them!

One source of frustration this week has been with the sippy cup. When Judith was sick last week, we didn't force the sippy on her as much and just gave her the bottle - that way she could use her energy to fight off the virus rather than burn the calories fussing about the sippy. As a result, we had some minor regression. So this week I was working with her to get her back to where she was. She was only taking maybe an ounce or 2 at a time from the straw sippy, and I kept second-guessing our decision to keep working on transitioning/dropping bottles (as a side note, it's not the sucking part that she's having problems with - she can get liquid through the straw fine. It's the intake that was concerning me). For some odd reason, I decided to give the soft spout sippy another try, and the little stinker took to that right away! The past couple of days, she's downed at least 2-3 ounces with each meal. Talk about easing up on the frustration! I'm thrilled that she likes it, and while shopping with my mom yesterday we picked up 2 more cups - 10 oz size this time, so we can fit an entire can of Pediasure in it.

We also had a surprise this week: remember when I mentioned before about Judith getting ready to cut one of her upper teeth? The one right beside the upper front left tooth? Well, it cut through, and the surprise part is the tooth in the same spot, but on the right side also cut at the same time! When I felt/looked at her gums, that tooth definitely did not feel like it was anywhere close to emerging, but after a quick swipe I noticed it was there! Her total tooth count is 5, and the final upper front tooth feels like it will come through in the next week or 2.

I am getting excited for tomorrow! I know Judith probably won't be super enthusiastic about Christmas this year, but I can't wait to see her open her presents! This year is a far cry from Christmas last year, and John & I are grateful that we can celebrate Christmas at home with our beautiful little girl.

John, Judith, Buster, Lady, & I would like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a joyous holiday season!